With the right training, retired Navy SEALs can be killers in a tech-based business world that stretches way beyond no-brainer security and law enforcement options. SEALs can strike it rich on the digital frontier. That’s one of the working premises of The Honor Foundation, a four-year-old nonprofit...

On the infamous date, 75 years ago, life changed, changed utterly. After the first dots and dashes — Pearl Harbor attacked — hit the Chollas Heights radio tower, a terrible beauty, stealing from the great Yeats poem, was born. I missed the combat, the rationing, the blackouts, but during the Cold...

To: Supervisor-elect Kristin Gaspar From: A North County well-wisher Re: Your re-election in 2020 First, off, congratulations. You defeated an incumbent supervisor, which hasn’t been done in San Diego County since Supervisor Paul Eckert was rejected by North County voters in 1986. Of course,...

The campaign to restore Presidio Hills, the neglected nursery of San Diego golf, is in the early mustering stage. A long, hilly course lies ahead. After last week’s column, which was hooked to a Presidio reunion round of former junior golfers long in the tooth but sporting killer short games, it’s...

Last weekend, I joined a group of San Diego golfers who share, in addition to the natural sorrows of aging, unnaturally feathery touch around the greens. For about a dozen years, Mike Riley, a stellar junior player when I was growing up in the ‘50s, has organized an autumn Old Town get-together...

Why is this dinner like no other? The question, modified and imported from the Passover Haggadah, seems particularly befitting as family and friends gather for this Thanksgiving like no other. In the first flush of spring, Jewish families recite over dinner an immutable narrative of suffering and...

“It’s North County’s Hundred Years War,” I wrote in 2009. “Long after my earthly remains are buried, Gregory Canyon will still be working its way through a permitting process only Kafka could love.” Saints be praised, I was wrong. I lived long enough to see the damned dump declared dead. Thursday’s...

The best competition I have is against myself to become better. — John Wooden What follows is a pathetic parable, a cautionary tale of how not to encourage children to excel in the only field that, in the long run, matters. The one between the ears. Legendary Coach Wooden, if he had a great-grandchild in...

More Logan Jenkins

For the American Civil Liberties Union, the election of Donald Trump is a potential nightmare with a huge upside. Thousands have taken to the streets to beat breasts over Trump’s victory, but a roughly equal mass of humanity has turned to a cerebral 96-year-old to protect their constitutional rights....

In the wake of a toxic tsunami of an election, North County is returning to what passes for normal. Yes, a few nail-biters are going down to the last votes. Will Congressman Darrell Issa put his race on ice? Will Supervisor Dave Roberts hold on to his slim lead? As these numerical dramas play out,...

So what does San Diego take away from the civic SATs it took on Tuesday? In the old dot-dot-dot style of the late great Neil Morgan’s heyday, here’s one political pseudoscientist’s summary of the exam results: Dems the Breaks: Col. Doug Applegate, Democratic It Guy, wallops Rep. Darrell Issa in...

The night before Election Day, the last national Gary Johnson for President event was held in San Diego. Started out as pretty big news. As a sweetener, the venue for the Libertarian swan song hit a gritty note: The House of Blues. Though billed as the headliner, Johnson flaked out over the weekend....

Every election season, I field calls from candidates or their surrogates expressing outrage over campaign signs being stolen or vandalized. I often assume a world-weary tone and advise embattled campaigns to anticipate a 10 to 20 percent spoilage rate. Sign decimation is baked into the cost of...

As the combat in the trenches has turned hand-to-hand, San Diego Democrats have deployed a special force, a progressive foreign legion, if you will. European socialists. Before you call the FBI, it’s legal for foreign nationals to volunteer in American campaigns, according to the Federal Election...

A two-question presidential quiz: • What American president for several years made his living as a Kansas City haberdasher? • What’s a haberdasher? If you immediately knew the answers — Harry S. Truman; the proprietor of a men’s clothing store — you’re tipping your age. For a rack of reasons, independently...

Election Day. It’s like an oasis in the distance as we crawl through blistering sand. It’s the mission of the media to call out questionable ads but, let’s face it, we’re outmatched by the sheer volume in North County. Today, my two favorite fudged ads, sundaes for political junkies with a sweet...

This election, I’m with the bad kids. I’m for bacon. At least it tastes good. Call me a fool, and I suspect many partisans will, but I’m dropping to the bottom of the list and writing in my presidential choice. Trump? Too terrifying. Clinton? Too depressing. Early on, I thought the Libertarians...

Logan Jenkins

To get Hugh Davies, you really have to get him to take his shirt off. Check out the tiny tattoo on his left breast, above the nipple. Yes, it’s the replica of a totemic alligator. Yes, the logo of the great French tennis player René Lacoste is inked into the chest of San Diego’s essential champion...

Two weeks and change from the Trumpian Day of Rigged Reckoning, unrigged roses and raspberries keep cropping up in North County’s fertile soil. A rose — the Eight Miles High award — to Escondido Councilman John Masson for jump-starting an ambitious civic project that’s been dreamed about for years:...

Today, let’s sit in a circle and run through our ABCs, the initial building blocks of the alphabetized section of the War and Peace-sized November ballot. Start with the letter A, as in Measure All-Encompassing. Think of an $18 billion cornucopia of regional transportation projects funded by a...

About a month ago, you may recall, my granddaughter played with a French-speaking girl she met at a restaurant. The newcomer from France, we learned, was starting second-grade at the San Diego French-American School in La Jolla. After my column appeared, Christian Jarlov, the head of the 28-year-old...

This weekend, I’m declaring a moratorium on electoral politics, which are beginning to remind me a lot of water polo. The most wicked shots are always underwater, out of sight, open to dispute over who kicked whom. Frankly, I’m sick and tired of thinking about which candidate is trumping the other...

Ten days ago, the Board of Supervisors took a sternly principled stand in opposing Proposition 64, a statewide measure that legalizes the sale of recreational marijuana and, let’s not forget, the industrious hemp. The unanimous vote was a ringing affirmation of law enforcement’s deeply jaundiced...

After the candidate forum in Escondido, I cornered a longtime North County farmer and asked whom he liked in the District 3 supervisor race. He shrugged his shoulders, indicating he was up in the air. He was impressed with Encinitas Mayor Kristin Gaspar’s command on the stage, but “Dave has always...

We’re entering the season, often called silly, in which the dudgeon, always high, flies into the stratosphere. Of course, we can’t compete with Trump’s tapes and Clinton’s emails. But we do our best to gin up the outrage. Today’s sampler reflects some of the ups and downs of contested elections...

Come Election Day, our long civic nightmare will not be over, not by a long shot. At the very best, the vote will mark the beginning of the end, a final act that could last — God pity us — years. By endorsing his own customized Measure C, the city’s downtown stadium proposition, Mayor Kevin Faulconer...

What a short strange trip it’s going to be. This weekend, my wife and I will be trying to hear, if not watch, live performances by the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Roger Waters (of Pink Floyd fame), The Who and Neil Young. Pretty cool, huh? Of course, our hearing isn’t what it was...

You’ve heard of the proverbial dead man walking. But dead man running? Oh my, only in O’side. Today, I’m awarding a rose — the Inventive Invective award — to Councilman Jerry Kern for one of the great political quotes in North County history. Time will tell, however, if Kern and like-minded allies...

“I thought you might be interested in this sad little story,” wrote Elizabeth Bryson of Hillcrest. Bryson often visits a friend at Sorrento Tower, a rent-controlled apartment building in Clairemont for low-income seniors and people with disabilities. For 26 years, Keil’s grocery store has been...

To order a hot helping of debate reaction with an order of hash browns, I dropped by Perry’s Cafe, the throwback diner on Pacific Highway, ancestral route of Highway 101. The patrons of Perry’s tend to be older and gruffer than, let’s say, your typical Starbucks. By and large, Perry’s serves the...

Sorry, I’m taking today off. The reason is not so much that I’m lazy, though I am inclined that way, especially on weekends. No, it’s just that every now and then I run across something that’s just better than anything I can come up with on my own. A part of me, the vain part, hates to admit it....

Outside Qualcomm Stadium, tailgaters were getting charged up for the season’s first home game. Grill smoke filled the air. In Barrio Logan, where I was hanging around late Sunday morning, the atmosphere was uncharged, the mood near somnolent. The frenetic energy of Mission Valley was a world away...